Morning
by Margaret Armstrong
Summary: Movieverse. Two escapees and the time it takes to heal. Mother is God in the eyes of a child, even when the child leaves home.
1. Stasis

Morning

Disclaimer: I own nothing save the thoughts in my head.

Author's Note: If you haven't seen the movie yet, I'm afraid this is full of spoilers. One also wonders WHY you're looking for fanfiction about a movie you haven't seen yet!

This story is rated "M" for the obvious reason that it's set in a reality where Silent Hill exists. The violence might be stylized, but it's still certainly violence, and much of this story centers around cleaning wounds and remembering how said wounds got there. The squeamish will not enjoy it. For the rest of you:

Starks in Silent Hill. For the night is long and full of terrors.

* * *

Sharon asked to borrow the first aid kit when they stopped for the night.

It surprised him, the firm, calm way she laid her hand upon his arm to stop any protest. How did she even know he'd try to refuse help?

For that matter, why did he want to refuse? This place wasn't home; who knew what kind of infection could—He exhaled, examining the surroundings rather allow the thought completion.

The diner perched in the middle of the flatlands like a lone, square glow amidst endless diamond-pricked sky. The attached motel was little more than darkened boxes tacked on later; a service provided to the truckers who were the bread and butter of the establishment. Whipcord neon signs glowed. Moths danced under the lights even in the chilled blue dark, and though dust had collected upon rusted tin advertisements, it had the distinct brown tinge of dried mud rather than ash.

Vincent felt uncomfortably lost.

The driver didn't reply with questions, just pulled out the old box by the handle after he grabbed his pack for the night. "Anything you use, replace."

Sharon's hand had slipped from his arm; her fingers played with his, cool and real. Cautiously he made the interlacing solid. She didn't pull away. "Yes, sir."

"You can buy them before we leave in the morning." The proprietor of the diner also kept a 24-hour gas station nearby stocked with essentials. The bright light of the towering sign had been the first thing on the horizon besides darkening sunset. "Be on time."

A fingernail briefly touched the tender inside of Vincent's ring finger when she released his hand to take the medic box. He joined her in speaking, though. "Yes, sir."

And the trucker disappeared into his quiet, utilitarian room, furnished with a bed, a bathroom, and not much else. The two hitch-hikers turned to theirs, equally exhausted as the driver but glad in a way the trucker could never be that someone had seen to it that every lick of paint in that little room was fresh and unpeeling.

The bed was even spread with an old quilt. Vincent smiled quietly at the traditional patterns before flicking his gaze towards the cross-marked box in Sharon's hands. "So. That's for me?"

She nodded, gently prodding him forward with her shoulder, a nudge of the hip. "Go shower. I'll lock the door."

_Against the world?_ He wondered, wandering back to the simple bathroom.

It was a shock of the familiar, tiny tiles (a few missing) on the floor and exposed lime-covered pipes, but no rust. There was space only for the essentials: toilet, sink, and a skinny tiled shower with a plastic curtain that must be one half of a full-width curtain if the subtle jagged edge on one side was any indication. A thick bar of soap rested in the shower. A stack of linens waited on the rack over the toilet.

Vincent counted them, frowning. "Sharon?"

"Hm?" Bottles clicked from the main room.

"There's only one towel." _And only one bed, but I can always sit watch…_

"Is there soap?"

"What—yes, there's soap."

"As long as there's soap, I don't care."

He poked his head out to stare at her. She'd stripped out of her vest and shoes (he could see the boots leaning against the foot of the bed) to pad around in stocking feet. The quilted spread now bore a neat array of medical supplies: gauze, swabs, pills, and disinfectant each in a carefully appointed place.

She'd even moved the clock to the floor to make room on the miniscule bedside table, was gnawing her lip in an attempt to make a decision about some other placement of some other thing when she finally noticed he was looking at her.

And she looked so young and surprised it took most of his self-restraint not to smile.

"Really, Vincent. I don't mind."

"What about washing our clothes?"

"I'll just use a sheet." She gestured to the object-occupied bed, ignoring Vincent's expression of wide-eyed disbelief. "Really. Go on."

When he still didn't move, her eyes softened.

"You're the one who's hurt. I promise if I ever get sick or injured, you can boss me around to your heart's content and do whatever inconvenient thing you want to make me more comfortable." The yellow light from the bedside lamp glowed in her blonde hair and upon her face, illuminating a dark smudge upon her cheek that he wanted to wipe away.

Yet what could he say to that? Especially the way she'd said it. He tried anyway. "Promise?"

He couldn't bring up the vow he'd made to her father, not so soon. Now that he could see her in the light, Sharon looked close to tears. Worn. Not threadbare, but so tight that just the wrong pressure would make the strings break.

Apparently that was the right thing to say (Or maybe he'd said it the right way) because even though her eyes were still too bright, she had to cover her smile to keep it from erupting into laughter. "Yes. Promise."

"Okay."

He turned into the bathroom. Everything but the boots could go into the shower with him. He sat down on the lid to unlace them, finally frowning as the cuts pulled and met. Whatever ritualistic power they had contained was gone now, leaving only the sacrifice behind. He'd had to button the vest to hide the first effects on the T-shirt, and he wasn't sure what the underside looked like now. Probably not too bad.

Boots done, Vincent stood to unbutton the vest. The right placket fluttered open, but the left appeared to be stuck to his body… With lazy blooms of watery red and crusty yellow spread out upon the formerly white cloth of the T-shirt beneath.

Damn. Soaked through.

He stripped off everything but the shirt, turned on the water (ignoring the first icy blast), and stood in a puddle of wet clothes until the T-shirt was completely sodden. Breathing calmly and evenly, Vincent ripped it off.

As a testament to his mother's skillful bladework, every angry wound re-opened at once.

Vincent stood with hands braced against the tiled wall, only slightly dizzy as he watched blood and pus swirl down the drain in the one pool he'd left free of clothes. A cursory examination of the T-shirt suggested that even by the scavenger standards of his previous life, it was no longer wearable. A mirror image of the sacred symbols to escape purgatory clung to the fabric in hard bloody crusts that might never soften. And perhaps he'd been a little too eager to remove it; amid the evidence of a thousand cuts he could see what seemed to be strips of skin.

Yet after all, what difference would a few more tears make to his abdomen? Light-headed, he stared at the bloody wash of himself, only vaguely aware that he'd fallen to his knees.

_At least my body isn't sprouting blades._ Blood swirled through his hands as he cautiously cleaned what little he could see. _Small mercies._

He sighed and leaned over his knees, protecting a raw and tender belly from the needle-like rush of the shower. _Mother, were you always like that and I just couldn't see it? Or were we all doomed to become creatures in a mad place?_

_Could I have saved you?_

There was no simple answer to that question. Every answer felt like selfishness incarnate. For all his life, he'd been raised to chase the roaming half of raging Alessa, a creature so profoundly evil she had nearly supplanted faith itself in power. He was the savior sent to find the Chosen Child, who must also be wicked, wicked, wicked. Any sacrifice would be worth the defeat of Alessa, and he had repeated the words of his mother and borne the pain with utter conviction in his heart.

He had not expected to find a girl so compassionate to others that she was willing to make herself into nothing to keep innocents away from the terrors stalking her shadow. He had not expected her to be afraid of the darkness. He certainly hadn't expected her to be lonely enough to talk to him even as she tried to push him away.

And never, not even when he knew this act of cunning to be what he must do to lure the Chosen Child back to hell, did he expect her to trust him.

But the moment she curled up and slept, exhausted, less than three feet away from him, Vincent had come completely undone. To betray faith was blasphemy and damnation, but to betray the trust of an innocent would have been obscene.

So far, damnation hadn't been that bad.

And he felt terribly guilty about it.

"Vincent? Are you all right?"

He sighed. Attempting to the staunch the flow of racing thoughts seemed to be as fruitless as staunching blood. "Sorry…"

"Do you need help?"

He eyed his stomach, then the ruined shirt. At least the back side was clean and could be used as stoppage. "No, just give me a minute—"

He wrung out the water, folded the fabric, and pressed hard before standing up and turning off the spray. Wincing, Vincent clutched the knob until the blood in his head readjusted itself. He'd just managed to get the towel around his hips with one free arm when it dropped. Then he lost grip on the blood-staunching T-shirt. It fell into the circle of the towel with a messy splat, and evermore helpfully, thick black wet hanks of hair got in his eyes when he attempted to retrieve it. He swore.

Muffled feminine chortling came from beyond the bathroom door.

Instantly, he decided it was better to clothe his nakedness rather than attempt to hide the ugliness of the cuts and the religion they represented, and tucked the towel as tightly as he dared around his hips, hoping not much blood would trickle down to stain it…

She was kneeling at the side of the bed, hand over her mouth and head bowed over the gauze. Next to the boots, the orange hoodie was piled on top of the vest with something black on top of the hoodie, and with the layers gone it was easy to see the ashy marks of his hometown upon her. Face and hands were more gray (darker in the nails) than cream like the skin shown by her sleeveless top. More distressing were the darkening marks on her arms that had nothing to do with fire. She stood, and her knees were masses of purple, yellow, and green with no stockings to hide the bruises. Did something drag her? What horrible things did she experience before slipping past the nurses in the asylum? He remembered seeing blood in her hair…

"Hey." The softness of her voice startled him more than a sudden scream, and he stared into her eyes, totally unprepared.

"_I'm sorry_." There was no way it could ever be enough, but it was all he could say.

Impossibly, unreasonably, she said, "If you're really sorry, lie down on the bed. I have to wash my hands."

Vincent did as he was bid and listened to her move around in the bathroom, heart sunk in bitter shame. He'd made a mistake. Better to come out naked as a man than leave his zealotry so disgustingly on display.

_These marks will scar. There's no avoiding that. And to think I once believed the holy circle would be a badge of honor, a talisman against evil… I'm no better than those lost creatures that have torn their bodies in an agony of vengeance._

_No. My sin was pride, which can be worse than vengeance._

Too exhausted to think clearly but too awake to stop thinking, his thoughts ground hopelessly while water droplets slowly evaporated from his skin.

He yelped when big, decidedly _cold_ drops of water smacked him in the face and upper torso. Sharon smiled at him, her face and hands at last the same color as the rest of her though the blonde hair still bore a tinge of gray. "Hello again." She moved to her knees, reaching across him for cotton balls. The smile faded. "Did you really have to rip it off?"

"Sorry."

"There had to have been a better way." He carefully watched her face as she moved, delicate as a bird on eggshells, picking up bottles and putting them down after a few moments' consideration.

"It needed to come off," he murmured, observing her fathomless eyes with fascination. "Better to do it all at once."

She rocked back on her heels, pale fingers fluttering against his bare shoulder and the hand holding his hip knot in place, looking at his wounded torso with something he could only describe as a determined despair. "There's no way to do this without hurting you."

"That's okay." _It's nothing less than I deserve._ Suddenly struck by inspiration (and perhaps largely the desolate look upon Sharon's freshly scrubbed face), he blurted, "Hold my hand?"

The immediate effect lay in losing physical contact with her entirely when Sharon jerked her hands away to her lap. Initially bereft, Vincent watched with growing amusement as she tried her best not to smile. "Your lines haven't gotten any better."

"That wasn't a line!" He forced as much somber dignity as he could muster into: "That was a genuine request."

And she did smile. "What are you, twelve?"

Vincent replied with a tiny smile of his own, feeling ridiculously triumphant and hoping it didn't show.


	2. Static

Disclaimer: I own nothing save the thoughts in my head.

**Author's Note:** However, if you're like me and like to read with mood music, please search out these tracks in no particular order:

Kate Bush "The Fog" (Highly recommended)

Tori Amos "I Can't See New York" & "Virginia"

Of Monsters and Men "Little Talks" (Unless you're tired of the radioplay by now)

Bat Fur Lashes "I'm On Fire"

Gary Jules "Mad World"

* * *

By the time Sharon had worked halfway up the scarred circle, from loins to abdomen, Vincent had nearly been lulled to sleep regardless of the stinging pain left over from sterilizing the infected area. Being bandaged wasn't nearly so traumatic, and Sharon had found out early on that the cooling effects of an antibacterial gel applied with a cotton swab to the groove of the wound was the most effective way to proceed, so the patient had had the uncanny experience of the sacred writings being traced and re-traced out of order.

Even more stunningly, sometimes Sharon would recognize the writing. A symbol here, a phrase there. Vincent laughed when she delivered a purposeful mistranslation that had gotten him into serious trouble when he was seven.

"But how?!" He asked, trying not to shake too much from his sitting position and disturb her work. "You grew up in Ohio."

Dark eyes blinked up at him, then suddenly turned downcast and shy. "Part of me did."

Ice water ran down his spine. Fear clutched his heart and tore at every place she'd touched, wildly aware that she'd had him at her mercy for hours—_And if she wanted to kill me, she'd have done it already._

He exhaled slowly, willing his treacherous heart to listen to reason and calm the hell down. "You remember things."

"A few…" Sharon/Alessa said quietly to her hands, which he realized, were inoffensively in her lap, far away from his tender organs, and more importantly, shaking. "The dreams make more sense now."

His heart did better than calm the hell down; it slowed to the pace of celestial movements. _If every paper in her father's box represented a dream, and every dream was like the one she had in the motel… The screaming nightmare, where she begged for mercy in abject terror…_

_Mother, you were so wrong._

_No nine-year-old begins life in evil. Cruelty has to be taught, and they taught her nothing but hate._

_I might not be able to teach her anything, but I can try to learn._

"I didn't know you liked puns when you were in school."

Sharon seemed to stop breathing, and he knew she understood his intended meaning. Her hands shook more; she clasped them together in supplication as if that would make them stop. "It was better than other things."

_I'm sure it was._ "Do you know any more?"

She shot him a look intended to be stern. "Not any more written on you."

"Are you sure?" He eyed his own chest warily. "You haven't finished yet."

"I don't know if I can."

He stared at her, struck suddenly by the fragility of her wrists as her hands twisted themselves in her lap, with her impossibly short skirt and terribly bruised legs. Ash in her hair... Once returned to wholeness, she'd kept the name of her innocent, adopted self rather than return to her original name, the one who had burned and burned again. What did it mean to hate (hurt) so much that the only solution was to tear oneself in two?

Even when taking her vengeance, she had wanted to be good. She had tried to escape, to start again as a baby. Yet still there were ashes in her hair that might never wash out. "You don't have to, Sharon. It's long past your turn to-"

"You won't disappear?"

"No." He took a chance on angering a goddess by touching one of those wrists; she stilled but didn't automatically consign him to hell, so perhaps the contact was acceptable. "If you want, I can use the bathroom mirror to finish this while you wash. We can keep talking."

"I'd like that."

"So would I."

* * *

At the second motel, Sharon managed to finally remove the last bits of ash from her hair _and_ bleach the roots. This turn of events put her in a good mood, and although Vincent was curious as to why, he wasn't so curious that he wished to ask prodding questions before she embarked on the daily ritual of re-bandaging his sliced flesh.

They had stocked up on supplies at the last general store; Sharon's father had trusted his daughter (and feared for her) enough to give her copious amounts of cash, secreted away in the lining of her boots. The Order had a number of caches as well, places they'd used to influence the search for Alessa's other. The locations of these places were etched into Vincent's memory as deeply as the sigils had been carved into his flesh. Although Sharon was wary, Vincent had convinced her that keeping a watch on those places was necessary for her safety. Perhaps the Silent Hill that had been their hometown was beyond reach, but another Silent Hill might well contain another Order bent on searching out heretics. Or, he reasoned, the Order's worldly locations might serve as a link to her parents, and at this, Sharon had agreed.

The more he learned of Rose da Silva (by her actions alone), the less he believed that Silent Hill could keep her long, not while her daughter finally walked free. Alessa could not have found a couple more deeply bound by love to serve as a foster family for her traumatized self if she had had the capacity to wish them into existence. For Sharon's sake, Vincent hoped Christopher da Silva would find his wife and a gateway home in short order.

In the meantime though, he loved motels with single beds.

True to her word, Sharon had wrapped herself in a sheet after scrubbing away the crust of tears, sweat, ash, blood, and dried guts that had been her souvenir from Silent Hill. Her clothes had joined Vincent's in decorating every possible hanging position in preparation for the next morning. Ignoring all his reasoned protests, she'd bodily dragged Vincent under the quilt with her, snuggled up to his unbandaged side, laid her hand upon his heart and her head upon his bare chest, and promptly fallen asleep. Vincent had no idea if he could claim responsibility for this or not, but she had had no nightmares. Personally, he'd never been so warm in a bed before, and it was worth his right arm falling asleep just to see her blinking drowsily up at him in the morning.

Even if she did immediately shove herself out of reach and do violence to the alarm clock.

"What's so funny?"

"You. Smiting the clock this morning." So much for not taking chances, but he couldn't help himself. He pushed wet hair out of the way and tried not to fidget. For modesty's sake, he'd put the black jeans back on rather than trust to a towel again. Jeans were decidedly more constricting when damp.

Primly, Sharon folded herself down in front of him. "Alarm clocks are creatures of ultimate evil, didn't you know?"

"Ah. I have been enlightened." Plus, the image of her with hair mussed from sleep, fluffing angrily around in a copious, shapeless toga-thing was too charming for words.

He couldn't wait for her to do it again.

"Smile while you can." Sharon set the tubes of antibiotic ointment next to his knee; he reached quickly to stop them from slipping off the edge of the bed. "I'm ripping that tape off in a minute."

"I thought ripping things off was a bad thing?"

She sighed at him. "Only when you do it yourself without any supervision. Now either scoot forward or lean back so I can get to the edges—oh wait!"

Obediently he paused in-between upright and prone, propped up on his elbows while she ran back to the bathroom in search of something.

Breathing deeply, Vincent tipped his head back until the healing skin on his abdomen pulled (It had stiffened during the day's drive despite the generous amounts of ointment she had used the night before.) but couldn't see anything. He yawned and clenched his abdomen, narrowly watching the gauze ripple. He needed to resume a physical regimen soon; tension exercises could only do so much, and if any Order members had survived the slaughter, they'd be searching for the two heretics as soon as the faithful could regroup. Vincent would need all his strength to keep her safe.

He felt her come back rather than heard her. Stocking feet were noiseless even on the motel's battered carpet, and Sharon wasn't the type to advertise her presence.

"Here." Sharon nudged him back into a sitting position with a hand under his shoulder and re-arranged the pillows behind him, topping it off nicely with one of the beige bathroom towels. "Now lie down."

The pillows made a perfect nest; his left side rose slightly proud of the rest of him and the towel was warm and dry. She had excellent access to the edges of the medical tape. He stretched his legs and was pleased to find that his center of gravity was centered on the bed so there wouldn't be any slipping. Ignoring the complaints of his abdomen when it was stretched, he crossed his arms behind his head and settled in. "Very nice. May I go to sleep now?"

"Ha ha." That twinge of sorrow was back in her eyes, tension lurking in her mouth while she surveyed the task at hand.

"I'll live, you know." Low but clear, he knew she'd heard him when her lips formed a pale line and she started to work without another word.

Point taken, he kept equally silent aside from a slight hitch in breath whenever she found a particularly stubborn adhesive. Smooth, fine fingers would caress the sticky red skin until the pain of the tape lay forgotten at the behest of a featherlight touch. Vincent truly was near sleep when she murmured, "Time for the bandages, Vincent."

"Mm."

"This part really will hurt."

"M'kay." He remained as calm as he could manage while she slowly peeled what felt like the first three layers of skin from his lower body. "…Ouch."

It was an unfortunate way to wake up, but now with Sharon sponging away the inevitable blood with every exposed inch, he was definitely alert.

"Sorry… I'm not tearing it all off at once if that's what you want." Focused upon her task, Sharon cautiously separated bloodied and slick cotton netting from the markings on his solar plexus. Most of the flesh stayed attached to him, though there was a stubborn gob or two for every inch of stained gauze.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he murmured, trying not to breathe too deeply and disturb her progress.

He nevertheless tensed and clenched his hands in the pillows once the stabbing alcohol washed his wounds, but much like the day when he had received the cuts, he didn't make a sound. Sharon, though, made soft apologetic noises with each swipe of the astringent cloth and ran fingers soothingly through his hair, sometimes stroking his shoulder after a particularly nasty gouge had been exterminated.

The touch was compassion itself and so new he didn't know what to do.

"Almost done." She promised, tucking a disturbed lock of hair behind his ear. "It's better than yesterday, but not by much—I can't believe you were moving with this."

Vincent risked moving up on his elbows, ignoring her gasp when he did so. The inflamed redness around the cuts had subsided since the night before, and even though the track from hip to chest glistened, it was from the medicine, not weeping wounds. "Moving seemed like a good idea at the time." _Rather than getting killed_. "Besides, it's not debilitating."

"Just painful."

He chanced a look at her face. Pale before, now twin blots of pink dusted her cheeks. Was she really that upset? "Not—"

"Don't lie, Vincent. It doesn't become you."

Stung, a reply shot out of his mouth before he could examine it. "Unlike Mother, apparently I'm not very good at lying, so what does it matter?"

Fat and rancid, the words hung in the air between them, turning the room (and his soul) cold.

In an instant, he _hated_ everything.

His mother, her knives and her words, each more cutting than the other, the insane and dangerous whiteness of his grandfather, grinning with anticipation each time the darkness came and unwary sinners screamed in the peeling night, the oily wheezing of the devout refusing to touch the tainted air. Rust and blood and flesh stained and rotten. The room with the moldy ceiling and the tattered chair. Holy books and wicked children and the never-ending _burning-_ And the one constant through it all, _himself_, blind and believing and unworthy of even this one small thing…

"Sit up, Vincent." The distance in her voice chilled him with the reality of a thousand gray winters.

He sat up. He couldn't look at her any more.

Time passed.

"Do you really think your mother was a liar?"

Desolate, he watched the wall, half expecting it to come alive and swallow him whole. To take him back to the bowels of home. "She told me nothing but lies."

"Maybe she believed they were true."

"That's even worse."

Sharon worked silently, the only sounds in the room their breathing and the occasional creak of the springs as she shifted her thighs into a better position. Cool gel covered the sigils for 'man' and 'travel.'

"You believed." Her voice was soft, no accusation. "This wouldn't have worked otherwise."

"Yes."

She set aside an expended tube and opened another, generously smoothing it over the ritualized cuts. "How long did it give you in this reality?"

Technicalities he could do, so long as she left the intention behind the tactics alone. "As long as it took to bring you back. Three days, maybe."

"Three?" Sharon made a small noise that could only be described as a snort. "Three days for a complete stranger to convince me to leave Dad and go halfway across the country to some abandoned town in West Virginia? Pretty confident, weren't you?"

Vincent felt compelled to point out the obvious. "It took less than two."

"_**They took my Dad**_**.**"

Vincent recoiled, staring wide-eyed into the black—_black_—eyes of her. But it was only for a moment. Apparently the sheer vehemence had shocked her, too. Wilting, Sharon seemed to fold into something prickly and contained that nevertheless neared explosion. "And with the dreams—I had no _choice_."

"Sharon-"

"He was _dying_. In every one." A sob tried to escape, but she jerked it back in with a hitching breath. "There was even, in my room, when I woke up from the first nightmare, he was there telling me everything would be fine, and the-" Her hands flew in curved motions around her head, and Vincent realized exactly what monster she couldn't describe. "_She stabbed him_ right-" A hand pressed to the center of her ribs, lifting her breasts momentarily before crossed arms resumed the task of keeping her terror contained. "Dad didn't stand a chance. His blood was… Hot. And. Everywhere… _It was so real, Vincent_."

He pulled the towel from the pillows, smelling faintly of the antiseptic but more strongly of soap, and wrapped it around her shivering shoulders.

The trembling didn't stop when he tucked her head under his chin (A difficult feat since they were practically the same height), but she did seem to breathe more easily. He could feel each shuddering exhalation upon his throat, even the tremulous one that ghosted words.

"Why is he still there?"

"To find your mom." He rubbed circles on her back, certain she knew which mother figure he meant.

"But it's been years—"

"I don't think that matters to him." _It wouldn't matter to me._ He settled his jaw in her hair, considering. "Time might move differently there, too…"

She stiffened. "How do you mean?"

"Well… Think about it. Alessa essentially moved Silent Hill into another plane of existence in 1979, but people can still live there decades later. Not even canned food is supposed to last that long." He made a face. "There aren't any seasons, just periods between bouts of darkness. Everything that is, is. Nothing changes except when people try to alter things."

Sharon puffed at him. "Bet that doesn't end well."

"It usually doesn't," he agreed, glad she'd recovered enough for sarcasm.

She turned her cheek into his throat, idle fingers stroking his collarbone. "Did you really only eat food from cans?"

He shrugged. The cuts didn't twinge so much with Sharon in the way, pulling his shoulders down. "It was food. The elders of the Order had stockpiles of MRE's."

"Just in case of apocalypse."

"Right." He could feel goose bumps rising in the wake of the lazy figure-eights she drew on his skin.

"Who were those people in the town square? The ones tied to the poles."

Oh, such questions she asked. He couldn't lie to her, no matter how much shame lay in those times of accusations and pointed fingers. "Criminals. Ones who had faltered in their faith. That's what I was told, anyway."

"The Order **burned** its own people?"

"Not always…" He breathed in the warm scent of her hair, taking small comfort in a reality so different from the last one. She'd surely hate him after what he had to say next. "…Grandfather believed that evil would re-accept its supplicants if the unworthy were exposed to the fruits of their own wickedness."

The girl beneath him choked. "_He left them outside."_

"And let the darkness take them, yes."

Horror and disgust mangled Sharon's voice. "I believe it." She leaned away. Vincent couldn't blame her. "And Claudia, even after she put him in the asylum, she kept doing it?"

_Not 'your mother,' but 'Claudia.' So the distance grows…_ "Obedience through faith. It was an appropriate punishment for traitors and blasphemers."

Back on her heels, she stared speechless at him for an empty century. "You can't believe that."

Bitterness clenched his jaw. "What, that it happened?"

"That it was an appropriate punishment!"

"It's what Mother did to anyone who disobeyed the Order, and the High Priestess determines what is wicked or pure, no arguments! It was how things were!"

Dismally, part of him realized he was shouting, screaming, attempting to drown out the shrieks of the Order's damned, but that time was only the memory of a boy kept secreted away in a moldering room. Close enough to hear, to learn. The desperate people were beyond silencing now. Nothing could help.

"No one defied her, not Grandfather, not the Devout, NO ONE!" He hadn't helped them then. Hadn't dared. And just like that time, remembering, his soul shriveled, and he knew his voice died with it.

It was almost a relief to be exposed as the obscenity of cowardice he was.

"Weaknesses couldn't be allowed in the Sanctuary, Mother said." The priestess' words fell like ash from his mouth: "'Weakness opens us up to sin. We must cut sin off like a festering limb, lest the rot spread to the trunk and blight the whole tree. Weep not for the fallen, but stand resolute in righteousness, for pain is the price of perfection.'"

_No, Mother._ He stared down at the raw meat, covered in slime, which was his body. _Pain is the price of following you. See how you fester? _

_But I can't cut you off, can I? You've already spread to the trunk…_

"Why did you?"

Sharon touched him, made his stomach jump where fingers brushed bare skin. Vincent strangled on air. "_What_?"

"If no one defied her, why did you? You warned me, remember." Almost a question, she traced the blade of his hip to the waistband of the jeans, rose up again to follow the stylized eye carven in his flesh and enclosing other sigils. "You even told me where the Seal was…"

He barely trusted himself to breathe. The fluttering touch upon his torn abdomen was less painful than something else. How had she gotten close again?

"This part meant… she could see you." Eyes dark beneath lashes, she examined the cuts in fascination, gently stroking subliminal patterns. "And this is… 'ever-hearing'?"

Close enough.

"She knew exactly what you were doing every second you were here, didn't she."

No point in denying it. "Yes."

"Why did you help me?"

"It was the right thing to do." He examined the wall rather than risk looking at her face. "You weren't anything like what I expected. You… In the school, you kept your back to the sunlight like you were trying to hide in it, not from it. You didn't attack the girl who insulted you or the teacher who kept prying. If you hadn't given that speech about people close to you getting hurt, I'd have thought the detective found the wrong girl. There wasn't any _violence_ in you."

She'd resumed bandaging his torso, but he could tell she was listening, so he kept talking.

"The forces at home were never like that. There's malice in the darkness; sometimes you can _feel_ the darkness coming before the lights go out and the walls start to rot, and I thought the same feeling would come from you, but it wasn't there. I could only feel it when the darkness tried to reach you, but you didn't welcome the power like you should have. You ran."

Her fingers were shaking.

"Not only did you run from the darkness, you ran from other people. To lead it away."

"Maybe I just thought I was going crazy. Crazy enough to kill somebody and think I was fighting a monster."

"So your solution was to get away from crowds of people? Sounds like the same thing to me."

She shot him a look. "_It's not_."

"You weren't insane." He sighed as she stubbornly went back to wrapping his wounds. "You were compassionate. And terrified."

Sharon didn't argue that.

"You didn't fit the Order's teachings at all. And then with your father gone…" He thought back to the days before, the blood-writing on the wall. "No one told me the Order would take him. Mother said he'd just been a pawn in Alessa's schemes, an innocent outsider. I assumed… I'd been told any sacrifice could be justified to free the Order, but if they thought taking an innocent man would induce a force of evil to follow, didn't that assume loyalty? Or love? Love is selfless. How could a wicked being love and still be wicked? Nothing made sense. And you, you were distraught. There wasn't a question that you'd follow whoever took your dad regardless of what happened to you."

_Because you love him and the idea that you've lost him forever leaves you so terrified I'm afraid you might break._

"You couldn't be evil." Vincent swallowed quietly, feeling shame wash him again in cold waves. "That changed everything. I'm sorry, Sharon. I should have warned you from the beginning."

She tipped her head to look at him. "You couldn't have."

"I-"

Fingertips pressed his lips closed. Something very like forgiveness ghosted in her eyes. "It takes time to question beliefs, much less change them. You didn't have time to think it through until we stopped, did you?"

In all honesty, no. "But-"

"But nothing. You thought the Order would _kill you as a traitor_, and you helped me anyway. Not many people would do that."

"It took too long!"

"I don't care! Nobody wants to die—Stop beating yourself up about it!"

"I'M NOT!"

"Yes you are! You thought you were betraying every belief you ever held and every person you knew who believed too, and you're above all a **good man**, so—" She clutched the fallen towel like a blanket. "…It wasn't easy. It still isn't easy."

He drew in a deep breath, not trusting himself to speak.

"Vincent, I'm _grateful_ you took me back. They'd have killed Dad if you hadn't, and I'd still be running. Alone." She exhaled slowly. "They would have caught me, too. You know they would have."

"Maybe not."

"Can you imagine Claudia letting up at all after getting so close?"

"Not… really, no." He could all-too easily picture how that would end: Christopher da Silva, bound and bloodless, everything sacrificed in the call, and his daughter chained and waiting for an ancient god. Himself he had no idea about. Perhaps the newborn god required live food immediately after tearing itself free. That would have been fitting.

The High Priestess had possessed an unsettling need to make him watch.

"So…"

Sharon was talking. He dragged his thoughts away from what little he knew of the birthing ceremony, glad in his heart that he would _never_ have to witness it. The Chosen Child was beyond their reach.

"Thank you."

Two words. He watched her pull her sleeves over her hands and hug herself against an invisible chill.

"No one else ever bothered to see me. To know _me_."

"Don't thank me." _Don't, don't, don't._ "My whole life revolves around you—I'm supposed to figure out how you work. Don't thank me for just doing what I was trained to do."

He looked up at a Sharon struggling (unsuccessfully) not to smile. It was the saddest thing he'd ever seen. Her eyes were strangely black again, but without malice. Gazing into her eyes was like staring into an abyss.

"What did I say now?"

"Nothing." Apparently it was something, because she certainly wasn't reacting the way he'd expected her to react. Kindness, for example. "We just… have to do something about the way you talk. Nobody out here says things the way you do."

"Sor-"

Fingers touched his lips again and lingered there. "It's okay. We just have to be invisible for a while, and you're remarkable. People would remember you."

The dual emotions of shame and elation fluttered in his stomach at the notion. "I don't mean to…" _What, 'be remarkable'? That's a stupid thing to say._

"It's fine." Sharon pulled him by the hand towards the shower. "Keep me company?"

* * *

The shower's steam fogged up the mirror and made the air a roiling mass of tiny water droplets.

"How long are you going to stay in there?"

"Until I look like a raisin." Sharon sighed behind the curtain, making a sound suspiciously similar to the nurses. "I love hot water."

Vincent couldn't argue; the available water at home had either been freezing or superheated to the point of boiling flesh removal. To have access to water of just the right temperature was a glorious luxury he intended to enjoy as often as he could once his skin had healed. "Tomorrow's the last stop."

"Mm."

"Have you thought about what he said?"

"And what you told me, too." He could hear her lathering the soap. "Do you think we should get a house or an apartment?"

"A house. Fewer neighbors, fewer people to pry. It can't be too far outside of town, though. We'll need to have access to transportation to check on the Order's safehouse."

"We'll need to get jobs."

"Sharon, that will put us in contact with more people."

"It's more suspicious for two kids our age to pay rent in cash. People will think we're drug dealers, and then they'll never stop watching us." The faucet squeaked and silenced the water

He sighed and leaned against the wall, drawing circles in the tiled condensation. "…I don't know what I can do here."

"Vincent, you can do plenty of things." A glistening hand emerged from the curtain in silent plea for a towel. He dutifully gave her what she sought, and the towel disappeared behind the curtain. "We'll be fine."

He listened to her dry off, checking their clothes on various pegs for dryness. She'd somehow managed to save his shirt, though it would never be as white as it once was. The traces of the symbols still lingered. _Scarred in both places._ "How long do you want to stay?"

"That depends on the place. If we both like it… Maybe six months?" He could hear the sheet rustling as she wrapped it around her body.

Vincent grinned at the orange sweater she'd so carefully laid on the towel rack. _Thinking of putting down roots? You sound hopeful._ "I don't think the Order would find us in six months. Maybe a year if no real leader steps forward."

_Well, Mother. Your tendency towards eliminating the competition works in our favor here._

"A whole year…" The happy nurse-like sighing was back. Vincent decided he liked it much better when it came from a living girl.

"We'll have to be careful, though. Do nothing to gain attention."

"Agreed." She padded up behind him to touch his arm. It was time for bed.

* * *

By silent agreement, they'd left the bathroom light on, but even with that, the shadows were an invitation to conversation—to somehow make this darkness of a different kind than the darkness they'd known before.

For Vincent, the biggest difference lay pressed against his right side, keeping him warm and being remarkably generous with the covers. Considering that she'd already got a whole sheet to herself, perhaps this was easily explained.

"You've never had cookies fresh out of the oven?"

"It wasn't a priority. Besides, we ran out of sugar rations pretty early."

"No chocolate?"

"That weird brown powdery stuff? It was disgusting."

"…Whatever you just described, that's not chocolate."

"It came in rectangles with 'Hershey's' written on top like in the stores here. When you opened the paper, it was kind of brownish-gray and crumbled a lot, but all the women fought over a bar they found in one of the newer abandoned cars. I don't see the appeal."

Sharon lay silent for a long time; Vincent nearly assumed her to be asleep when she said, "Once we get a place with an oven, I'm making cookies. You will eat them."

"…Okay."

"In fact, we're going to cook a lot. We'll need to get a place with a pantry. Lots of storage. Maybe we can get some basil."

He nearly laughed. "Basil?"

"An herb plant. You can use it as a seasoning or pick the leaves to make salad. It grows really fast."

"Sounds useful."

She lightly drummed her fingers upon his chest. "You don't care, do you."

He thought carefully. "It's not… that I don't care. It's just overwhelming to think of all the things I've missed."

"Oh." Her knee, heavily swaddled in sheets, shifted upon his. "I'm sorry."

"Don't." He gently caught her fingers before she could pull them away. "It's only a change. I'll get used to the new things, but you'll probably have to help me."

"I didn't mean to—Make it sound like you were deprived."

"But I was." He looked seriously into her eyes, reflecting just the slightest shine from the light. "You know what I did the first hour I got here? The sun was rising and I stared at it like it was a miracle. It _was_ a miracle. All those colors. All that brightness. An entire lifetime and I'd never seen the sun. I could barely even believe in it here, where the sun exists, it was so far outside my experience."

She tried to protest, but he stopped her.

"I _have_ been deprived, Sharon, and I need you to tell me how far. You know things about this reality that I couldn't even dream up, and if we're going to stay safe, I can't afford to be… Strange."

"You are **not** strange!" She tangled her fingers with his, jerked hard. "It's just culture shock, that's all!"

"What about when I say something nobody else would say?"

Her eyes went wide and her lips pursed, much like the dusty old pictures of fish in the nature books in the library, but significantly more endearing. Sharon was flustered. "That—You're sincere, Vincent. It's not weird or strange, just uncommon nowadays. No one would ever guess the truth. They'd just think you had strict parents-"

He wisely chose not to comment when she buried her face in his shoulder, murmuring, "I'm sorry. That was an awful thing to say…"

The twisting ache was softened considerably by the fact that she trusted him enough to use him as a shield from feelings of shame. And she cared enough to apologize. He squeezed her hand. "You meant to explain this reality. Not your fault."

"Ugh."

"Tell me about your mother."

"Why?"

"I want to know." Suddenly, he desperately wanted to hear about Rose da Silva, the woman clever enough and brave enough to steal one half of the Seal of Metatron from his grandfather in order to send her daughter home. "And I think you want to tell someone."

Sharon's breath warmed his skin, and he knew he was right. The next few hours passed in memories of Rose.

* * *

**Author's Note:** So. Now our young heroes are two days out from Silent Hill as the trucker drives and well on their way to a brand-new teenage awkwardness.

I hope anyone reading has enjoyed it so far, and though I'd like a review or two just to check that I uploaded the story correctly (First-time FFNet publishing attempt. I have little faith in my skills.), please don't feel pressured. There is... a nebulous plot developing here, though I confess that the story is mostly an excuse to engage in meandering character development and creeping horror elements. For those fans of Silent Hill's signature monsters, rust, and gore- I love blood, too!

Given that I'm writing this mostly for my own giggling amusement (Vincent-I-Grew-Up-In-Silent-Hill vs. Modern America- Go!), there will be situations which _**I**_ find funny, and if I can find a way to shove it in, a rotten corpse or six, possibly with twisted blades, will be involved. Also, I'm excited at the prospect of imagining thousands of little details regarding life in the Order and how Silent Hill really is a helltown: 1) The bath water is never the right temperature and 2) Heinously, the chocolate is all spoiled from age.

Spoiled, crumbling, rotten chocolate is a tragedy to make the very stones weep. May you, dear readers, be spared that experience.

Anyone have a SH-appropriate idea that would peg a place as a living hell? Do share!


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